SoaPatrick

Lego Fan, Star Wars Nerd, Movie Geek, TV Show Junkie

I was working on a Soap Lab Logo

As I mentioned in my previous Post, I had the Idea to make all my movie projects under a new banner called Soap Lab Experiment. Now roughly two weeks later I can present you the first version of set Logo. I was playing around with different fonts and colors and style and all before I came to this version and I REALLY really like how it turned out. The whole thing has been done in Illustrator which is really handy to have. I was also drawing some things with my iPad Pro connected to my mac using Astro Pad. The color Pink is a nod to Fight Club, obviously. There were different color versions and with different background colors as well but this one was the one that stuck out the most. I might animate the flask in the future but for now, this is it. After all, I need to make movies in order for me to actually use it, so time to make some movies!

So now it’s time to actually shoot Reflection which will be done either today or tomorrow. So fingers crossed that all works out so that I can publish it this month.

Basel Stadt

One of the ideas for a personal project I had last year was to take a city map from Basel and walk through every street there is at least once, that way I can honestly say I’ve seen every corner of my hometown. So I took that city map and placed it within a frame and hung that on the wall. Now every time I walk through a street for the first time, I mark that street with a red marker. I will take weekly photos from that map to see the progress I’ve been making over time.

Movie Projects

Last year I had the bold idea of doing 12 movie projects in 2019, one for every month. I’m still committed to this plan and I’m already at work on my short film for January. But I want to refine that idea bit more right now.

Soap Lab

I’m playing around with the idea of making all these upcoming movie projects under a new name. Either A Soap Lab Experiment if it’s more of an experimental thing, or A Soap Lab Production if it’s something more serious. There’s even an idea for A Soap Lab Accident if it’s something really crazy. So right now I’m brainstorming for some sort of Logo for this or intro for all future movie projects.

Reflection

Last weekend I shot and edited all by myself the January movie project called Reflection. I did make some mistakes while shooting (damn auto white balance) and realized while editing what was missing and what needs to be redone or changed. It’s a rather complex short film because of timing and space constriction and the fact that I’m starring and directing at the same time, but I was able to do it all in 4 hours. So I will make some adjustments, plan everything a bit better and reshot everything again very soon.

Story Ideas

While shooting Reflection, I realized that I sometimes I’m having trouble finding new stories to shoot, or I’m too picky about what to shoot. So in order to shoot faster and a lot more stuff, I could reshoot scenes from movies or TV Shows which are doable. That way I learn from professionals by trying to recreate something and I don’t have to worry about coming up with a story (Those would fall under the Soap Lab Experiment Banner) and these videos could be more popular and generate more traffic. Because if Reflection taught me anything, it’s that shooting, editing and releasing a movie project within a day or two is absolutely doable, it’s the whole story part that’s taking up more time.

Now I’m not saying I’m doing anything original anymore but maybe I keep it simple stupid from a story perspective in order to practice the technical elements of making movies.

To Conclude

I plan on releasing at least 12 short movie projects this year, one per month, and they will be experimental, short, crazy and maybe even a bit more sophisticated once in a while, but this year is all about quantity, doing the work and practicing like crazy so that I can focus more quality next year.

SoaPatrickSix?

All these projects need to be highlighted a lot more here and like I previously wrote about it here, I’m not really sure which way to go. Add these features to SoaPatrickFive? Make a new SoaPatrickSix or buy a theme with all the functionality and therefore be able to focus on my movie projects? I’m still not quite sure what the best way to do here is and I think I won’t start doing something until I’m sure what I actually want. Make a completely new theme is tempting though.

Social Media

Making movies is fun and all but if no one is actually watching them then what’s the point, that’s why I need to be more active on social media and promote my work. This starts with being more proactive, make more interesting content and get people to follow my work. I still think the best way to achieve that is proving to people that I do create new content on a regular basis and people like to get notified when new content is published (in case they like it of course)

So this is it, this is my plan for 2019 and I’m curious what will come to fruiting from all those plans. When I look back on my resolution for this place in January 2018 I must admit that I didn’t post daily throughout the year (I did the first 3 months though, which I think is impressive) but I think it helped me to get to where I am now, actually making short films, so it all turned out nicely in the end

Let’s recap December of 2018, shall we?

So this is it, the last recap of the year, well not exactly, this is the last monthly recap, a recap of the whole 2018 will still follow sometime this week (hopefully).

But yes it has been a busy month actually. I released two videos this month, though technically Juicy Finish was done in November, came up with some ideas for future movie projects and took a lot of pictures (latest one being today’s featured image) to get to know the camera. So apart from Juicy Finish (which was shot on my old Sony a5000) I recently released a Promo Video for Zum Lange Inseli with my new Camera the Sony a7III. It was a fun experience and shows that I’m on the right track by just doing videos and don’t worry too much about the quality (though with the upcoming ‘Reflection’ Short Film I’m currently preparing I notice that I’m starting to think too much about compositions instead of choosing something and go with it).

Besides being a busy month it was also an expensive month with my new Workstation and all that comes with it and all the moviemaking gear I bought. But I do think I’m prepared for the new year to put those new toys to work. I don’t have any excuses anymore to NOT make something.

But I think that’s it for this months recap, especially since a more detailed recap of the whole year is planned for the next few days. So now it’s time for me to get ready for a chilling evening among friends. This is the moment where I say goodbye everyone, have a nice evening and good start into the new year, see you on the other side…

SoaPatrick needs to change a bit

Now that I plan on doing more video work on a monthly basis (maybe even weekly) this place needs to change a bit and reflect those projects a lot better than just being part of a new Blog entry.

I thought in the past about doing some sort of landing page with the latest Video or Factory Item and Blog entry being highlighted and the Blog being a subpage of the whole website. That also means of course finally adding a factory item detail view because just having an image there means nothing, everything I did for the factory deserves some more information.

But there’s the time issue because doing that needs time, time I currently rather spend on doing a new short film or just a new video in general. There’s also the thought of doing a complete new design (SoaPatrickSix) which also incorporates the newly release Gutenberg Editor. The WordPress Theme TwentyNineteen could be a new base for such a theme, But that would take even more time. I guess I have to do some thinking on what’s more important and who knows, maybe I will once again use a third party theme which does everything already to save me time.

Shot a Promo B-Roll Video

So I’ve made my first video with my new gear and I thought a Promo-Video for my Bar ‘Zum Lange Inseli‘ seems fitting. When you watch a lot of youtube Videos you see a lot of so-called B-Roll, so I thought I’d give it a try.

The video was shot in 100p with only 16mbps bitrate. The SQS Mode on the camera allows me to see the footage right away in slow motion on the camera compared to the 100mbps in the regular Movie Mode. That way I could immediately see if the footage was usable or not and saved me some time. Maybe there’s a way to see the 100p 100mbsp footage slowed down to 24p on the camera as well and I just haven’t found out how to achieve that.

I also tried to play with angles, pans and zooms to achieve a more dynamic video. Certain shots were harder to achieve by doing everything alone, like the spinning coaster while panning the camera, but for the more complex shots, I got help from a friend which saved me some time and made it possible to get specific shots I had in my head.

I think it was a great first try with doing a B-Roll video and I know what to look for in future projects (maybe record in 100mbsp because somehow the video looks a bit fuzzy on Youtube, oh well). I also tried my hands on an animated Instagram Story to promote the video. They are cool to look at but need extra time which needs to be planned on set as well, same with interesting Behind the Scenes pictures.

There was one set up for the overhead shot where I put the glass on the coaster which looked really cool with the tripod, the slider mounted on the tripod, the camera mounted on the side of the slider and then the monitor connected to the camera to know what’s in the frame and what’s in focus. BUT I forgot to take a picture of it, well have to remind myself to do that next time.